Wednesday, 20 April 2016

Typological groups according to the Pew Research Center. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A new Pew Research Center analysis
of international census and survey data finds that there is a religion
gender gap: Women generally are more religious than men by several key
measures of religious commitment, although this pattern is not universal
and can vary by religious tradition.

In some countries and faiths, men are more religious than women, at
least by some measures. For instance, among Muslims and Orthodox Jews,
men are more likely than women to attend worship services at least
weekly, the new study finds.

Religiousness also can be measured by
asking people how important religion is to them personally. In more than
half of the 84 countries surveyed (46), roughly equal shares of men and
women say that religion is “very important” to them. However, in 36
other countries, more women than men say religion is important in their
lives – and usually by wide margins. As a result, across all 84
countries, women surpass men in this aspect of religious commitment by
an average of 5 percentage points (65% vs. 60%). Only in Mozambique and
Israel do men say that religion is very important to them more often
than women do.

The biggest exception to the general
pattern of women being more religious than men occurs in weekly
attendance at worship services. Across the 81 countries where Pew
Research Center data are available for this measure, more men than women
attend worship at least once a week (48% vs. 42%).

This attendance gap is largely driven by
27 countries in the survey with large Muslim populations. In many
Islamic societies, men are expected to attend communal Friday worship
services in the mosque, while women can fulfill this obligation either
inside or outside the mosque. There are similar religious norms
regarding worship attendance among Orthodox Jews in Israel. As a result,
men in these 28 countries report far greater rates of attendance than
women, often by margins of at least 20 percentage points.

By contrast, in countries that have large
Christian populations (30 of the 81 studied on this measure), women are
more likely to report attending services weekly. And in 23 other
countries, men and women report attending about equally.

According to an other Pew Research Center published last month, surveys in 63 countries have asked Muslims and
Christians about belief in heaven, hell and angels and showed that lots of people are still convinced that they might be tortured for ever after they die or that they go to heaven when they are finished here on earth.

In 47 of the 63 countries (75%), men and women are about equally likely
to profess a belief in heaven. Women are more likely to believe in
heaven in 15 countries, often by margins of 5 percentage points or more.

Men and women in 52 of 63 countries (83%) are about equally likely to
say they believe in hell. Women hold this belief more than men in 10
countries, while men surpass women in this belief in Lebanon. Overall,
when the 63 countries are taken together, an average of 81% of women and
80% of men believe in hell.

Across all 63 countries, a greater share of women than men believe in angels by an average gap of 3 percentage points.

Looking at Christians only, there are just a handful of countries where
the genders differ significantly in their beliefs in these concepts. A
larger share of Christian men believe in heaven in only one country
(Lebanon); Christian men are more likely than Christian women to believe
in hell in two countries (the United States and Lebanon) and to believe
in angels in one country (Zambia). On the other hand, more Christian
women than Christian men profess belief in heaven in five countries
(Russia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chile, Botswana and the United States), in
hell in four countries (Kazakhstan, Russia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and
Chile) and in angels in nine countries (Kazakhstan, Russia, Uruguay,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Uganda and Guatemala).

Tuesday, 19 April 2016

A simplified chart of historical developments of major groups within Christianity. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From April 15 to 17 the 17th annual White Privilege Conference was held in Philadelphia.

Activist and author Paul Kivel identified three particularly severe problems in the modern world that are caused or worsened by Christianity.

I could agree with his idea about certain people storming for their faith, bringing crusades, like we can see the crusades of the Muslim brothers of today. Though I would not call it Christianity's effort to spread Western ideas and influence but love to ask people to see the big difference between Christianity and Christendom, the first one preaching world peace and equality for all people, leaving everybody to choose for their own God or gods, whilst certain people in Christendom thinking all should be part of their religion and belief in their threeheaded god.

Paul Kivel lecturing in front of his homemade posters explaining Christian hegemony [Blake Neff] On one poster, he showed “Christian hegemony” at the center of a web
that included ideas like “racism,” “sexism,” and “ableism.”

Perhaps Kivel had in mind how certain evangelicals tried to bring their faith to the African communities and how Christian groups or Christian nations went to war in the East.

I would agree with the economical aspect brining people at war, but that has nothing to do with Christianity. Most wars are a matter of power and of getting more material wealth, not spiritual wealth.

As third problem was mentioned that

under Christianity mankind has dominion over the Earth, rather than
requiring that humans treat the Earth itself as 'sacred.'"

Once again here could be better spoken of Christendom. In Christianity all teaching is directed to respect for the Work of the Divine Creator and as such every creature has to be respected and man has to treat nature as good has he can. In Christianity each lover of God should understand that we as human beings are only here on acceptance and have the world in loan. It does not belong to any one person in particular, except God.
It is by human's wrong doing that we are now facing the problem of "climate change" and not because of those believing in Jehovah God and in Jesus Christ, the son of God.

It is not because it is said in the Bible that man has been given dominion over all other living things, that it would sanction man's abuse of the environment or other
creatures.
(Genesis
1:28; Matthew 25:14-30; Exodus 23:10-11 and Leviticus 25:1-7).

Kivel argued also that

Christianity orients us to distinguish between good and evil, which forces us to
adopt a "with us or against us" mentality. "There's nothing inherently
good or bad about the weather or about people,"

he insisted.

Good versus bad does not mean with us or against us, and such mentality has not to be provoked by being a Christian. Kivel makes an irrational leap that to distinguish between good and evil
leads to condemnation of various things as worthy of destruction.There are Christians, who are trinitarians, and cannot cope with people who have an other faith than they, but more often it are non-religious people from certain political groups, who have much more difficulties with believers in God and who are most intolerant toward people and ideas of other religions or
secularists.

Already 12 years ago a Jehovah’s Witnesses group in Moscow was charged of recruiting children, encouraging believers to break from their families,
inciting suicide and preventing believers from accepting medical
assistance and had to be dissolved and banned.

Late December 2013 already the leader of thereligious group in Tobolsk,
Siberia was charged with extremism and the prevention of a blood
transfusion that nearly led to the death of a female member of the
group.

In January 2014, after one year of debates the court in Kurgan ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by the prosecutor’s office of Kurgan in the
Urals to declare the Jehovah’s Witnesses book Keep Yourselves in God’s
Love and the booklet Resist the Spirit of a Changing World extremist.
The decision was forwarded to the Justice Ministry for inclusion in the ministry’s list of extremist materials.

The books talk about how to have a happy life,
what you can hope for, how to develop good relations with God and what
you should know about God and its meaning.

In March 2015, a court in Tyumen fined the organization 50,000 rubles ($752) and seized prohibited literature.

The Tyumen Regional Court ordered the liquidation of the Jehovah’s
Witnesses branch in 2015. The court granted a motion filed by
prosecutors and declared the group extremist.The Supreme Court thus
reversed the lower court’s ruling.

According to a representative for the Jehovah’s Witnesses branch, the case has been framed up.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have had many legal problems in Russia.

The Watchtower Society presents videoclips. The April 2016 broadcast sees William Malenfant introducing a new feature in
which scientists who happen to be Jehovah’s Witnesses are interviewed
about their views on evolution. Yaroslav Dovhanych, a Russian zoologist, and Professor Raj Kalaria, a brain researcher at England’s Newcastle University in England.

Describing his pre-creationist experience Dovhanych says:

“The evolutionary theory, in my opinion, quite reasonably argued that there is no creator.”

According to him the evolution theory argues that everything was shaped by a series of random changes and combinations.

For many it seems difficult to see that evolution is a guided process, even if natural forces rather than a supreme celestial supervisor are doing the guiding. when you look around yourself, in your family, you will notice many changes by you against your ancestors. Continually we are evolving.

“Can anyone say that some computer programs appeared simply by chance?
In contrast, evolutionists would like us to believe that DNA was formed
by evolution. To illustrate, say you take some letter blocks, pour them
on to the table, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica is formed. There is an even smaller probability that DNA originated by evolution.”

he says.

Raj Kalaria does find that

“We were taught about evolution of life, and this was just part of the
curriculum,”

and looks at his years of training when scientist tried to look at all things withouth taking God in the picture.

“At the time there were no other options, as
it were. God did not come in the picture at all, or God creating the
heavens and the earth, as it were, never came in the picture.”

Kalaria supports the belief that human life can continue once a brain
dies certain people will be able to live as spirit creatures in heaven, and
these kingly entities will rule over a future Earth populated solely by
Jehovah’s Witnesses, many of whom will be resurrected with new brains to
replace the ones they lost at death.

“We started looking at the nerve cells themselves in terms of the volume and the number,”

says Kalaria,

“And it’s phenomenal that in that small area of the brain there are some
1.4 billion neurons. So the number of connections that make us,
synapses they make, is phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. And so when
you think about the complexity of all that, how is it possible that that
is just by random chance? It has to be guided.”

Those scientists who find such ideas ludicrous because for them it is impossible that there would exist such a deity because it must have been vastly complex in the first place. they seem to forget that makes Him the Omnipotent One.

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Welcome

Welcome at this zone created by Marcus Ampe for the Belgian Free Christadelphians, where previous articles from the MSN Groups and Multiply are brought together and made available again to the general public. On 2012 October 26 this site came into development and new articles shall be added next to our main site and to the Christadelphian Ecclesia site: Christadelphian Ecclesia.You are welcome at that site to find more articles.

All who want to follow Jesus/Jehsua (Yeshua/Yahsua) from Nazareth, the Christ, the Messiah and wants to be united with people who sincerely want to keep to those teachings of this Masterteacher are welcome to share their love for Christ and their hope for the coming Kingdom.

The name 'Christadelphian' is compounded of two Greek words: 'christos' and 'adelphoi' and means 'brethren in Christ'.

This site is created by a Free Christadelphian only bounded to Jesus Christ. We are open to anybody who wants to share the brotherly love of Christ. Coming together by a common belief in 'the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ' (Acts 8:12).

In the older Multiply messages links to Multiply shall not always work from 2012 December 1, but you shall be able to find them by copying and pasting the title in the search machine. I am working on re-editing those links from 2005 onwards, so that they shall work in the future?

Free Brother in Christ.Having enjoyed a theatrical life as dancer, choreographer, choreologist, artistic director, balletmaster and teacher. Now retired but also part-time working at Brussels International Airport. Responsible for the Brothers in Christ or Christadelphians in Belgium.